Dear Jezebel: Your Sex Advice Column is STILL Crap

Dear Slutever, I do not engage in any sexual activity unless my prospective partner and I both get full STD testing. In the past five years, not one woman that I dated agreed to this. Why are so many women against getting tested prior to sex?

Sincerely, Alan

Hi Alan,

While I agree with Slutever’s assertion that you should probably start presenting this in a different light to your dates (and using condoms!), I’m more concerned with your reasons behind this request. Would you stop seeing someone if they tested positive for an STI?

As someone who has struggled with germ phobias, I would suggest that you engage the services of a therapist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy so that you can get past this particular quirk. Condoms and dental dams, when used correctly, are extremely effective at preventing transmission of most STIs, and I suspect that you know this already. So, before jumping into the sack with someone, even if they’ve shown you a clean bill of health, take care of yourself first and talk with a trained professional about your concerns.

I’ve been at war for the past three years but I’m coming back next week, and I really need to take my mind off things and want to lose myself in some self-love. I’m in a small town with little access to sex shops, so I was wondering if you had any unique ideas for sex toys I could fashion out of household items, or any tips that would help achieve a great orgasm experience. I really need something to get excited about!

Thanks, Steven

Hi Steven,

First of all, congratulations on finishing your tour of duty! I really wouldn’t recommend fashioning your own sex toys or using things from your kitchen. There are intricacies of the human anatomy that are better left to the experts. Fortunately, although you live in a small town, you can easily order masturbatory aids online that will be shipped to you in discreet packaging. Smitten Kitten comes to mind immediately! As for interesting sex toys, there are a plethora that you can choose from! If you are interested in penatrative objects, there are items like the NJoy butt plugs, or vibrating butt plugs/perenium massagers. If it tickles your fancy, you could also experiment a bit with sounding, though I can’t find any online retailers that I would wholeheartedly recommend. For other masturbatory aids, there’s the ever popular fleshlight, and along the same lines, you can purchase a Tenga egg masturbation sleeve, or the slightly more elaborate Tenga 3D masturbation sleeves.

Just make sure you eat and drink plenty of fluids, use lubrication, and go out of the house every once in awhile during your “me time”. It would be tragic to see a headline like “Soldier Starves to Death During Marathon Masturbation Session.”

I am a 31-year-old woman who has been married for 5 years. We still have frequent and awesome sex, but I have an issue that (oddly) seems to be getting worse with age. I orgasm way too quickly! And then I’m basically over sex. I’ve never had multiple orgasms, ever. I have one gigantic, eye-popping orgasm after about 3-5 minutes of intercourse and then I’m ready for sex to be over. I’m constantly telling my husband to slow down or stop totally during sex so I can prolong it enough for him to get off too, but it’s getting to the point where he’s a little hurt that I can’t “hang on.”

Love, Caitlin

Hi Caitlin!

Much like last week’s column, I would recommend that you spend a lot more time on foreplay, concentrating on getting your husband close to orgasm. It would also help if you talked about this outside of the bedroom, and make sure that he knows you are asking him to slow down or stop because you want him to enjoy sex too! The numbing agents that Slutever recommended can help, but you also might have an adverse reaction to them. I know a lot of women, personally, who find that creams or lubricants that are supposed to numb their genitals give them a burning sensation instead.

It is uncommon for a woman to orgasm that quickly, especially if there isn’t some sort of direct clitoral stimulation during intercourse! A little more communication between you and your husband can really go a long way here.

I think this is going to be a regular post for Nice Girls, at least until Jezebel hires a better sex advice columnist. Some of Slutever’s recommendations are downright dangerous or unhealthy, and I hope my responses provide a needed balance. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Ohmigod! At first I was confused til I realized it was YOUR advice we were reading. I was thinking “hmmm this advice sounds good to me….” Then I went to the actual column and read… what the HELL. What an offensive terrible voice. Slutever? Wow all the other female sex positive names were taken? The advice is terrible or correct but delivered so badly. Painful to read.

I’m fine with the advices for the second and third question, although wish to point out the second question was asking for “sex toys to fashion out of normal household items” rather than actual toys.

As for the first question. I don’t see anything wrong with getting tested for STDs before engaging in sexual activities, especially in our country where protection is sooo barely done (most guys prefer the “withdrawal” method and don’t bother to buy condoms and yet have the gal to fool around lots) I see it as a must.

I am not against STD positive or STI positive people, and if my love was one I would still love him anyway and seek ways to still be intimate with him. But if my boyfriend asked me to get tested (and we had talked about it too, he does want me) I don’t mind, and we shall both get tested for it. I dislike that you immediately sounded defensive over STI and STD’s and immediately judge one as germ-phobic. It sounded that way to me.

It wasn’t so much that I disagree with testing, in fact, I think that it is of utmost importance!

I certainly extrapolated a lot from his question. He has nearly been intimate with 5 women he was dating, and they bailed as soon as he asked them to get tested. That suggests, to me, that perhaps he has anxiety about STIs that is not commensurate with the normal level of anxiety one should have about them in this day and age. Condoms are incredibly effective against STI transmission. Perhaps he should request that they both get tested when they decide to stop using barrier methods while being monogamous, instead of immediately at the outset.

Im a bit iffy with the first answer too. Whilst condoms and other barrier methods are very effective, they are, however, only very effective. If your partner is ditching, its an indiction to me that there pride is greater than there concern for both your and there health.

More so if they have previously got a STI from someone who was pretty sure they were clean whilst using these not 100% effective condoms/barriers.

Chiming in to add that I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to make an assumption that someone has “issues” by asking their partners to take an STI test. Regardless of the effectiveness of condoms and dental dams, you can still transmit diseases orally, plus there is the caveat of a condom failure or even a dental dam accident.

In fact, I would even go on to give that guy a standing ovation for taking such an interest in his health and insisting that his partners do, too. I would argue that a majority of the population don’t think once, let alone twice, about potential health risks when they snog or bed someone new, so it’s refreshing to hear about someone who takes that seriously.